Lots of chatter on the Internet is celebrating the evolution of ”Web 2.0,” or the next generation of web systems and content. What is it, exactly? Depends on who you ask. Marshall Kirkpatrick offers a useful description, suggesting that Web 2.0 services and systems have the following qualities:
- They allow non-web designers to put their own content (writing, audio or video etc.) online easier than ever before.
- They make content more portable than ever and easier to remix, mash together or reuse in a different context.
- They utilize this user-generated content and the economy of scale/ network multiplier effect created to draw valuable connections between related users and content.
- They make discovery of new content more automated and relevant than ever before.
- They have the potential to exponentially increase the amount of information that any of us are able access, store and recall.
- And it all happens fast.
If you’re interested in nonprofit applications of the new tools and systems, wander over to NetSquared, a project tracking and fostering the technologies to promote social change.
UPDATE of 3/2/06: For some tangible evidence of what Web 2.0 might look like, visit CNN’s new listing of the Next Net 25, where they flag ”25 start-ups that are reinventing the web.”
I’m so glad you found that useful! I’m very happy to have found this site and will subscribe for sure.
Thanks too for your link to Net Squared. I hope that your readers will check out that organization and perhaps even join us for our conference in May. I do interviews there at http://netsquared.org/tags/interviews
Best of luck to you!